AAA, which is short for Authentication, Authorization and Accounting, is a protocol for controlling a wireless device's (or its user's) access to network resources. AAA is important for efficient network management and security.
Authentication may be described a process by which a wireless device and a network check if the other party has an authority to communicate with each other, i.e. the process of adding or denying individual wireless device access to a network and its resources. Authentication on both sides should be passed for the communication to proceed, i.e. the wireless device and network mutually authenticate each other. For example, a user must enter a valid user name and password before access is granted. The process of authentication is based on each wireless device or its user having a unique set of criteria for gaining access. An AAA server compares a user's authentication credentials with other user credentials stored in a database. If the credentials match, the user is granted access to the network. If the credentials are at variance, authentication fails and network access is denied.
A wireless device or its user may be given different authorization levels that limit its access to the network and associated resources. Authorization may be based on geographical location restrictions, date or time-of-day restrictions, frequency of logins or multiple logins by single individuals or entities. Other associated types of authorization services may comprise route assignments, Internet Protocol (IP) address filtering, bandwidth traffic management and encryption.
Today, most solutions build on wireless device or end-user authentication. Authentication of the wireless device or end-user only works if the wireless device or end-user is not “evil”, meaning that it does not try to fool the server or network node, i.e. that it is not associated with a fraud third party.